After suffering terrible headaches and stomach cramps, Mr. Lăzărescu, a lonely 63 year-old man, calls for an ambulance, beginning one man’s hellish journey through Bucharest hospitals in search of proper medical care. As the night unfolds, his health starts to deteriorate fast.
Three young men from western Europe are bringing humanitarian aid to a remote Transylvanian village. They’ll also be the recipients of a little humanitarian aid themselves.
The exploits of an odd adulterous couple
In the 1950s, a party activist travels to rural Transylvania to collec collectivize village farms. A wealthy householder resists attempts to make him give up his wealth, refusing to be brought down to the level of those who have never worked. The concept of collectivization is summed up by an indignant villager who, forced to work the land he no longer owns, bombards the party activist who claims that the land is still his: "You cut off my p..., put it in my hand and said, 'take it, it's still yours'.
A family at odds with each other.
The life-story confession of a prisoner waiting for his trial. Victor Petrini, a promising intellectual in the 1950s and a lecturer in Philosophy is arrested by the repressive secret police, wrongly accused of espionage, and sentenced to prison and forced labor.
A perspective on the Romanian revolution which started in Timișoara.
In a shabby apartment somewhere in Romania, a man obsessively zap between his TV channels despite the wife's complaints and nagging. But where his wife fails, a little man inside the TV will appear and tell Sotul a thing or two about the true mechanics of television zapping...
An investigation is launched following an accident at a chemical plant. During the investigation, Andrei, a young engineer at the plant, proves his moral qualities.
In a devastating story rife with visual metaphors, Romanian director Mircea Daneliuc traces the slow mental disintegration of a confirmed gambler, using his disorder as an allusion to a greater national and social disorder. Set in the 1930s, the middle-class gambler meets an elderly man who seems to bring him good luck at the gaming tables. Rather than treasure his friendship and the good fortune it brings, the gambler takes advantage of his friend, and by his actions drives the man to suicide. Unable to reconcile his own mental demons, the gambler wanders through the house of his dead friend, and his experiences there only serve to unsettle his mind more and more and more. In the last reels of the film, the fantasies of the hero's deranged mind take over.
In post-communist Romania, young prosecutor Dumitru Costa is sent to investigate a miner's suspicious death in the Jiu Valley. As he delves deeper, he uncovers a network of corruption and negligence within the local mining community. Costa's pursuit of justice pits him against powerful interests, testing his resolve in a society struggling with the aftermath of transition.
Jacob (Dorel Visan) is a gold miner who risks his life daily to support his wife, mother-in-law, and four children in this socio-political drama. Under the rule of an oppressive monarchy backed by military force, the miners often resort to stealing gold to compensate for their meager wages. Workers are subjected to strip searches and are forced to take laxatives by the often brutal guards and inspectors as they look for stolen gold, and Jacob raises his vocal objections over the treatment of his fellow workers.
Based on actual events which happened at the Radio Romania station in Bod-Brasov, during the beginning of the revolution for social liberation and for the country's national liberation, an anti-fascist and anti-imperialist revolution, on August 23, 1944. After King Michael I ousts the Nazi-allied dictator Ion Antonescu, Nazi troops struggle to recapture the Radio Romania station, their former headquarters in an attempt to regroup their forces, but are opposed by a determined band of anti-fascist fighters.
The 17-year-old Amalia, the daughter of a widower lumberjack with many children, falls in love with a soldier. An irresponsible young man, the soldier refuses to admit that he is the father of the child to be born, as Amalia was just a fling in his eyes. Amalia decides to raise the kid all by herself, but she soon changes her mind…
A desperate husband chases a bus full of beautiful women headed for Paris, France.
A description of Romania before Ceausescu's downfall, through the story of Nela. Daughter of a former colonel of the Securitate, the romanian political police. She refused to become like her sister, an agent of this Securitate, and lives with her father. After he died, she leaves Bucharest, and ends up in a little town, where she meets Mitica, a surgeon, another herself, laughing at everything.